In 1906 Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto noticed that every year 20% of the pea pods in his garden produced approximately 80% of the peas.
He soon realized that this principle held true in all sorts of areas and industries. This became known as the Pareto Principle, or what is now often referred to as the 80/20 Principle.
The 80/20 principle stipulates that 80% of the output or results will come from 20% of the input or action.
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Want to know what I like most about words?
Just how powerful they are. How they can either make or break you. How they can inspire, motivate, or place you in a negative feedback loop forever.
The words we tell ourselves often become our destiny.
Words give us the opportunity to tell ourselves a story that is empowering, to build a mindset that enables us to create happiness, rather than pursue it mindlessly.
Yet, we often fail to do so. We use words that do not motivate us, quite the contrary.
That’s why I am writing this article. That’s why I am going to share with you the five most motivational words in the English language.
Continue reading2 AM finds you in bed, on your phone. It’s a senseless succession of mind-numbing cat videos, memes, and vlogs. Finger gymnastics. It’s the hour of the heartbroken, the inability to fall asleep after a day of breaking your heart over and over again.
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of developing some awful habits that ensured unhappiness, poverty, and sickness.
I just didn’t know any better.
Once I knew better, I did better. I took better care of my mind, my body, and my emotional well-being.
And I’ve discovered this neat trick: happiness is mostly about eliminating the daily habits that break your heart; letting go of certain patterns of action and beliefs that are making us miserable.
Here are seven daily habits that sabotage your happiness and how to get rid of them once and for all.
Continue readingWe often think of success as part magic, part luck, and part knowing the right people.
We often think success comes down to how the planets align, how certain external factors shape us. Maybe it’s the economy, or the government. Maybe it’s our friends.
The truth is that luck is something we only notice in other people.
The truth is, if you want to be successful in any area of your life, you must follow this simple rule: the more you want it, the more you have to do to have it.
We tend to obsess about strategies and plans, but the truth is that we must take massive action in order to reach our goals.
The truth is, the more you work, the luckier you get.
Yet we often tend to ignore this rule of life because it provokes mental discomfort. If you don’t earn a million dollars per year, you have one of two options:
Either of these two options are heartbreaking, so you often think that you’re just not lucky enough.
After all, luck can’t be controlled, so there’s no way someone could hold that against you. The truth is that even if it were a valid excuse, still no one cares. The only thing that matters is that you do the work and have results. That’s it.
The more you work, the luckier you get. The more action you take, the easier it is to build momentum and keep going.
You become an unstoppable force in life, in love, in business, in writing by placing on foot in front of the other. Some days, you won’t feel like it. Some days, you’d much rather hit your head against a wall. But you’ve got to do it.
The more you work, the luckier you get.
Continue readingA few years ago I went through a bad breakup. The kind of breakup that got all my friends spending all their free time with me, because they feared what I’d do if left alone.
One of my friends, trying to make me feel better, gave me the following advice, “Why are you crying over a girl? Others have lost empires.”
You’ve probably heard something similar being presented as a quick fix for any dark night of the soul.
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Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one is willing to die.
Well, the truth is that while we’re here, on this earth, we get to either create heaven or hell. Either is something of our own making.
And while we all pretend that we want heaven, we complain, argue, gossip, and cry over things we have yet to lose.
Happiness is not to be pursued, it’s not the by-product of having money, fame, or being physically attractive.
Happiness is a state of mind. Happiness is an architectural build. It’s like placing one brick over the other until it’s shaped like a house.
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“Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. Says, “But doctor…I am Pagliacci.”
Alan Moore
You know the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover?”
Well, it’s true.
Oftentimes there’s a big difference between what we’re able to decipher about a person, what we see at the surface, and what lies underneath it all. There’s a big difference between appearance and essence.
I’m going to do the obvious here and use myself as an example.
There was a time when I was depressed. I had no money, no job… I felt lonely most times, in that bizarre way when you’re waiting for someone to enter your life and cure you of your loneliness. In a way, I’d spend my nights either writing or missing someone I had never even met.
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People define success in a lot of different ways. To some, success is all about money. Others define success as “the freedom to do and say what you want.”
To me, success means doing my best on a daily basis. It also means feeling that I have an positive impact on the world around me.
To you, maybe success means changing the world around you, or changing just one person.
Success can easily be about conquering the world, or simply conquering your desire to conquer the world.
The truth is, regardless of how you define success, there are certain habits that are essential to you becoming successful.
Success doesn’t just happen. You have to make it happen. And you need to take action on a daily basis to make it happen, even though sometimes you don’t want to do it.
Here are the most difficult habits one has to develop in order to be successful.
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As most other terms containing the word “self,” self-confidence is one of the many things we pursue in life. Defined as having the mindset to do a thing, and do it well, self-confidence is the closest thing we have to a super power.
But how do you boost your self-confidence?
How do you grow out of the person that you are in order to become who you want to be?
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You get up two and a half million dollars, any asshole in the world knows what to do: you get a house with a 25 year roof, an indestructible Jap-economy shitbox, you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes and that’s your base, get me? That’s your fortress of fucking solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of fuck you. Somebody wants you to do something, fuck you. Boss pisses you off, fuck you! Own your house. Have a couple bucks in the bank. Don’t drink. That’s all I have to say to anybody on any social level.
John Goodman, The Gambler
Defined by some as being consumer-debt free and having at enough money in the bank to last you for at least six months with no money coming it, the notion of f#ck you money sounds quite appealing.
But why?
What’s the point of having f#ck you money? Well, besides the obvious, that you can say f#ck you whenever you feel like it, for any reason at all, there are a couple of added benefits to reaching this level of financial independence.
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